Live Art

Live Art, originally uploaded by Photo2217.

On breathing/vocation

I don’t often take things for granted. In fact, I am a natural preservationist because I want it to last as long as possible. I prefer to not even use the thing, and just know it exists, but never fully tap into it. I keep gifts in the original wrapped container for years, perhaps decades. My friends often tell me I gave it to you, to use it, read it, wear it, make something with it, and I often keep it wrapped and tucked away. The mere idea that it exists, and it’s in my care, makes me happy. Why do I do that?

But even in life situations, I know not to take them for granted. Great moments don’t last forever, and horrible moments don’t either (although they seem to). So in the last crisis I had, I knew there was a lesson to be learned in it all. I had forgotten what breathlessness felt like. I had experienced it thrice before. Only to wrestle with it again on Friday afternoon. Have you experience breathlessness? You are alive, eyes open, not breathing, and the world is moving, continuing, as you struggle to catch oxygen? You hear the voices of the ones circling you (they’re breathing), and you want a little bit of that air too, but just don’t know how to start breathing again. The wind has been knocked out of you, and your footing is gone too, and you’re just trying to struggle to make sense of it all and breathe.

As many doors that have been opened to me, they have also banged shut. And when it shuts it feels as the draft sucked the last good taste of oxygen out too. Your left with a struggle to find the basic survival technique of simply breathing, not to mention a loss of a foot hold for balance. Perhaps my voyeur, “prove it to me” nature has been developed through moments like these. I sometimes would rather watch the situation, than be a participant. I almost always watch someone else do it first before I attempt it. Is it safe to bungee? How cold is the lake? Do you have a helmet? Does it really mop up an entire bb court? It slices and dices? No way!

And even in my “prove it to me” nature God meets me. He doesn’t have to, but He does. He takes me to scripture and an understanding of root words, and takes me directly into the definitions of His life giving Spirit. IITimothy 3:16 reads, “All Scripture is inspired by God.” The phrase inspired by God, translates in Greek (theopneustos), “God-breathed.”

The circumstances surrounding this journey to Togo are to eerily coordinate to just title it circumstantial. The happenings took place in such a strategic capacity that no spider could have deciphered the silken pattern, and yet it could snap just as easily. Silk can hold steadfast through any storm. Perhaps that’s the lesson I needed to learn. That God breathed upon my vocation and the wind of the Holy Spirit brings about a sculpted work that only He knows the final product.

That vocational calling for a photographer is to never be taken for granted. The circumstances around each potential manifest of a “gig” is just not a coincidence, but a divine appointment. To continually live in a dimension where one could realize that every word, prayer, conversation, electronic message, music note, click of a shutter, dance step, has a purpose, is a hard place to remain, but oh so worthwhile. That’s the space of divine relationship with our Creator. To create and be as He is and creates. Not that we could create the world, but that we would use the creative talent that has been inspired “God breathed” into the arts and the everyday of our lives.

To receive vocational/life inspiration, “to breathe in the Spirit,” to take God, breathe Him in, and have him reside in us is a fundamental core that is often times missed. God wants to breathe His creative/vocational life in us through his mighty Holy Spirit. When artists/photographers/dancers seek inspiration from The Holy Spirit, the breath of God begins to stir within us, and God will faithfully reveal what we are to do, and how we are to accomplish it. It may not be revealed according to our time, (calendar, pda, meeting, deadline), but He will carefully structure a breath of inspiration, with the gentle wind that sets a dandelion to flight or with a howling wind that formed the sculpted edges of the Grand Canyon. Whatever it takes! He can do it!

I JOHN 3:
1 What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we're called children of God! That's who we really are. But that's also why the world doesn't recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he's up to. 2-3But friends, that's exactly who we are: children of God. And that's only the beginning. Who knows how we'll end up! What we know is that when Christ is openly revealed, we'll see him—and in seeing him, become like him. All of us who look forward to his Coming stay ready, with the glistening purity of Jesus' life as a model for our own.
…
18-20My dear children, let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. 21-24And friends, once that's taken care of and we're no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we're bold and free before God! We're able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we're doing what he said, doing what pleases him. Again, this is God's command: to believe in his personally named Son, Jesus Christ. He told us to love each other, in line with the original command. As we keep his commands, we live deeply and surely in him, and he lives in us. And this is how we experience his deep and abiding presence in us: by the Spirit he gave us.